Dalton is a powerful general-purpose program system for the study of molecular electronic structure at the Hartree–Fock, Kohn–Sham, multiconfigurational self-consistent-field, Møller–Plesset, configuration-interaction, and coupled-cluster levels of theory. Apart from the total energy, a wide variety of molecular properties may be calculated using these electronic-structure models. Molecular gradients and Hessians are available for geometry optimizations, molecular dynamics, and vibrational studies, whereas magnetic resonance and optical activity can be studied in a gauge-origin-invariant manner. Frequency-dependent molecular properties can be calculated using linear, quadratic, and cubic response theory. A large number of singlet and triplet perturbation operators are available for the study of one-, two-, and three-photon processes. Environmental effects may be included using various dielectric-medium and quantum-mechanics/molecular-mechanics models. Large molecules may be studied using linear-scaling and massively parallel algorithms. Dalton is distributed at no cost from http://www.daltonprogram.org for a number of UNIX platforms.

We report the discovery of a tandem catalytic process to reduce energy demanding substrates, using the [Ir(ppy) 2 (dtb-bpy)] + (1 + ) photocatalyst. The immediate products of photoinitiated electron transfer (PET) between 1 + and triethylamine (TEA) undergo subsequent reactions to generate a previously unknown, highly reducing species (2). Formation of 2 occurs via reduction and semisaturation of the ancillary dtb-bpy ligand, where the TEA radical cation serves as an effective hydrogen atom donor, confirmed by nuclear magnetic resonance, mass spectrometry, and deuterium labeling experiments. Steady-state and time-resolved luminescence and absorption studies reveal that upon irradiation, 2 undergoes electron transfer or proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET) with a representative acceptor (N-(diphenylmethylene)-1-phenylmethanamine; S). Turnover of this new photocatalytic cycle occurs along with the reformation of 1 + . We rationalize our observations by proposing the first example of a mechanistic pathway where two distinct yet interconnected photoredox cycles provide access to an extended reduction potential window capable of engaging a wide range of energy demanding and synthetically relevant organic substrates including aryl halides.

A theoretical examination of the L-E-E-L class of molecules has been carried out (E = group 14, group 15 element; L = N-heterocyclic carbene, phosphine), for which Si, Ge, P, and As-NHC complexes have recently been synthesized. The focus of this study is to predict whether it is possible to stabilize the elusive E(2) molecule via formation of L-E-E-L beyond the few known examples, and if the ligand set for this class of compounds can be extended from the NHC to the phosphine class of ligands. It is predicted that thermodynamically stable L-E-E-L complexes are possible for all group 14 and 15 elements, with the exception of nitrogen. The unknown ligand-stabilized Sn(2) and Pb(2) complexes may be considered attractive synthetic targets. In all cases the NHC complexes are more stable than the phosphines, however several of the phosphine derivatives may be isolable. The root of the extra stability conferred by the NHC ligands over the phosphines is determined to be a combination of the NHCs greater donating ability, and for the group 15 complexes, superior π acceptor capability from the E-E core. This later factor is the opposite as to what is normally observed in transition metal chemistry when comparing NHC and phosphine ligands, and may be an important consideration in the ongoing "renaissance" of low-valent main group compounds supported by ligands.

A theoretical study of compounds containing Be in the +1 or 0 oxidation state has been carried out. The molecules considered containing Be in the +1 oxidation state are analogues of the important Mg(I)-Mg(I) dimer supported by the β-diketiminate ligand. The molecules in the 0 oxidation state are NHC supported compounds analogous to "molecular allotropes" which has recently become a topic of importance in p-block chemistry. In this case, our results demonstrate that the Be(0) complexes are far more stable than the analogous Mg(0) complexes, highlighting the opportunities afforded in Be chemistry, despite the challenges presented by the toxicity of Be compounds.

This article makes the key observation that when using cylindrical algebraic decomposition (CAD) to solve a problem with respect to a set of polynomials, it is not always the signs of those polynomials that are of paramount importance but rather the truth values of certain quantifier free formulae involving them. This motivates our definition of a Truth Table Invariant CAD (TTICAD). We generalise the theory of equational constraints to design an algorithm which will efficiently construct a TTICAD for a wide class of problems, producing stronger results than when using equational constraints alone. The algorithm is implemented fully in Maple and we present promising results from experimentation.